So I checked the mail today and found a package from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories. This is not a usual thing for me. I opened it to find that I had received a small chunk of aerogel as a result of filling out a survey on NASA’s new Stardust-NExT website, a new site about our exploration of comets. Answer some questions about the site’s usefulness and you might get a prize! I filled it out and forgot about it. Until today. Aerogel is the lightest solid on earth. That’s not hyperbole, it’s listed with Guinness. Invented in 1931 to win a bet, it’s what you get when you replace the liquid in a gel with a gas, and it’s also incredibly strong, extremely resistant to heat, and 1,000 times less dense than glass. NASA uses it to insulate spacecraft (39 times more insulation than fiberglass) and they’ll be using it on the Stardust spacecraft to capture comet particles. It’s been used for the Mars Pathfinder and other rover missions, and it has a variety of earthbound applications such as skylight insulation, drug delivery, heavy metal absorption from water, and tennis racquets. Also, it’s freaking amazing stuff to play with. It’s […]
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